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ORATION, 

DELIVERED BEFORE THE /^^ 5*" 

DEMOCRATIC CITIZENS 

OP ALLEGHENY COUNTY, 

CELEBRATING THE 57tH ANNIVERSARY 
OF 

AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE, 

ON THE FOURTH JULY, 1833, 



BY WILSON McCANDLESS, Esa, 



PITTSBURGH; 



(Published by ordeir of the Committtee.) 



J. B. BUTLER, 



Printer. 






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I I i { --r 



Pittsburgh, July 5, 1833. 

Dear Sir — A number of those who had the pleasure of listening to 
your Oration, delivered before the Democratic citizens of our City and 
County, on the 4th of July inst., believing that the patriotic sentiments- 
so eloquently expressed in that address, would be gratifying to your fellow 
citizens, on behalf of many of your personal friends, request a copy for 
publication. 

Very respectfully, &c. 

^ CHARLES SHALER, M. B. MILTENBERGER, ^ 

ROBERT CHRISTY, T. M. HOWE, 

^WM. LECKY, J. B. GUTHRIE, 

^S. KINGSTON, GEORGE A. COOK,^ 

^ ROBERT BURKE, WM. M. SHINN, ^ 

GEO. R. WHITE, JOHN HARPER, 

JOHN B. BUTLER, R. H. DOUTHITT. ^ 



Pittsburgh, July 8, 1833. 
Gentlemen— 

At a time when, within our own city, one of the most distin- 
guished statesmen of the country is pouring a flood of light upon the nature 
and effect of our republican institutions, any effort of mine, upon a similar 
topic, must necessarily be both feeble and imperfect. It is, therefore, with 
unfeigned reluctance, I furnish for publication a copy of the Oration deliv- 
ered on the 4th inst. 

For the flattering terms in which you have been pleased to express your 
approbation, accept my thanks. 

I am, with much respect. 

Your obedient servant, 

WILSON M'CANDLESS. 
To Hon. Charles Shaler, and oiiiers. 



ORATION. 



You have come together, my fellow citizens, for no ordi- 
nary purpose . To hold in grateful remembrance this holy 
Sabbath of American liberty, calls forth the noblest and most 
exalted feelings of our nature, and elevates you in the estima- 
tion of all human kind. All your common avocations are this 
day suspended, and you have assembled round the festive board, 
to forget your former feuds and animosities, to soften your po- 
litical prejudices, to contemplate the grandeur and stability of 
your republican institutions, and to sing the pas an of your 
country's deliverance. No event can be more interesting — no 
spectacle can be more sublime, than to witness you doing ho- 
nor to the mighty dead, and holding up to public admiration, 
"Amid the blaze of their sunset halos," 

the deeds of those heroic men, who laid the corner stone of the 
Republic, in the sombre hour of the Revolution. Other people 
celebrate the birth-days of their kings and potentates, whose 
whole lives may have been a scene of moral carnage; but to you 
is reserved the ennobling privilege, by spontaneous consent, 
of marking the annual return of a day, that spoke into exist- 
ence a nation, and on which was performed the proudest act 
recorded in the annals of humanity. Their public fete may 
be attended with all the splendor of royal magnificence, and all 
the opulence of the aristocracy, enlisted by the impulse of a 
time-serving motive; but yours is the voluntary offering of the 
heart, for achievements that are past, but vivid and bright in 
the recollection of all. 

The 4th of July, '76, has no parallel in history. The repre- 
sentatives of thirteen infant colonies, without power or strength, 
save that ardour of soul which characterizes men struggling to 



be free, declared in the presence of God, and the whole com 
munity of nations, that their thraldom should be no more. — 
Standing up in all the majesty of their natures, they asserted 
the proud prerogative of governing themselves, and of tramp- 
ling under foot the edicts of a king, who claimed to reign by 
the grace of God. Europe beheld with wonder, and on the 
British royalist came fear, and trembling. The king issued his 
proclamations, appointed his commissioners, and offered pardon 
to the rebels who should submit to his royal clemency; but Con- 
gress and the people, aggravated to the last extremity by repeat- 
ed grievances, laughed to scorn this unwarrantable assumption 
of imperial authority. "The castle of our defence was strong," 
the hearts of our countrymen were impregnable. 

The Declaration of Independence, altho' the act of afew patri- 
otic individuals, was countenanced &. supported by the great bo- 
dy of the American people. And does this assembly, so large, so 
intelligent, enquire, what actuated those heroic men in thus as- 
serting their independence? I should do you injustice, my fel- 
low citizens, to suppose, that every edict which heaped oppres- 
sion upon the colonies, &. every act of vigorous resistance, on the 
part of the American people, was not well and intimately known 
to you all. History's broad and unerring page, speaks facts 
that cannot be falsified. In characters darker than Erebus and 
the shades of night, are there traced the wrongs and oppres- 
sions of thfs then suffering people. All the exploits of British 
renown, whether upon the sea or on the land, have as yet been 
unable to efface this stain infused into her national honor. 

Lookback to the early history of the country — to the settle- 
ment of the Puritans, who fled from the political broils of their 
own country, to find a home and a refuge in this. No armwas 
stretched out for their assistance. They were left to drive out 
the savages, and hew down the stately forests of America; and 
the government neither offered the use of her treasury, nor the 
protection of her armies. When, by indefatigable labor, they 
had reared a prosperous and wealthy colony, the hoary avarice 



of the British ministry, looked to them as a source whence 
might be derived much pecuniary and political advantage. The 
whole coast of North America, studded with infant but progres- 
sive colonies, became the theatre of their moral depredations. 
Not content that the people should "be hewers of wood and 
drawers of water" to the parasites of royalty in America, they 
imposed taxes without their consent, and denied them the 
right of legislative representation. 

None but a despot will deny the importance of free represen- 
tation. — It is the "vital principle of political existence." With- 
out it the government is of precarious tenure, and the people 
under the domination of men, who acknowledge no responsi- 
bility. Without it, the judge may take a bribe, and the public 
rulers be guilty of the most palpable heresies, and not be amen- 
able to any tribunal for their political sins. 

The sturdy yeomanry of America spurned such a system. 
Having no voice in the public councils, they denied the right 
of a British Parliament, to impose upon them the evils of taxa- 
tion. Supporting a foreign as well as domestic government— re- 
fused the privilege of shipping their products to any other than 
an English port — paying heavy duties when there — their man- 
ufactures embargoed to subserve the interest of British monop- 
olists, and the country drained of its resources, without any 
corresponding benefits, were burdens too heavy for the expand- 
ing souls of American yeomanry. Hurling the gauntlet of de- 
fiance at their imperious sovereign, they burst the chain of civil 
despotism, and scattered the fragments to the winds. 

On that day the glory of the British sun was obscured, and 
up rose, in the political firmament, a new constellation of 
THIRTEEN brilliant and dazzling STARS. Political as- 
tronomers gazed, and wondered much, and long, to ascertain 
the beiaring of this novel appearance in the heavens. The stars 
separated not. A belt as strong as that of Saturn, and as beau- 
tiful as the girdle of Venus, bound them in indissoluble UNION. 
All agreed, that they were not fixed stars, but were on the rap- 
id ascent to the brightness of the zenith. 



When this mystery appeared in the heavens, the British king, 
like Belshazzer of old, was drinking from golden goblets, and 
feasting with his wives and the wise men of the realm. And 
when the king beheld it, "his countenance was changed, and 
his thoughts troubled him, so that the joints of his loins were 
loosed, an>i his knees smote one against another." And the 
ministers and soothsayers, and astrologers were called in to in- 
terpret it. They stood amazed, while horrors chill ran through 
all their veins. 

"They spoke not a word ; 
But like dumb statues, and breathless stones, 
Stared at each other, and looked deadly pale," 

until the great Chatham, faithful and fearless, shewed the in- 
terpretation — declaring "that the king had been weighed in the 
balances, and found wanting; and that his kingdom was divid- 
ed, and given to the Medes and the Persians." 

Such was the scene presented on the other side of the At- 
lantic — what was the result of the Declaration here? 

A glorious impulse was given to the cause of liberty — a new 
courage was infused into the bosom of the army. Disregarding 
present hardships, and urged on by the new born spirit of In- 
dependence, mountains were leveled to plains, gulphs were con- 
tracted to the space of rivulets, and there was no obstacle, mor- 
al or physical, that was not overcome with ease and facility. 
Gazing down the vista of time, they saw, with a prophetic eye, 
the final accomplishment of all their wishes. Stimulated by 
tJie conscious justice of their cause, and the distant echo of 
victory, they advanced from campaign to campaign, from battle 
field to baltle field, through ice and snow, and amid a continued 
tempest of the elements. Defeat followed defeat, but the kin- 
dling spark of eternal liberty could not be extinguished. "Like 
earth's central fire, it may be smothered for a while, oceans 
may overwhelm it, mountains may press it down, but its inherent 
and unconquerable force will heave both the ocean and the 
land, and at some time or other, in some place or other, the 
volcano will burst out, and flame up to heaven." 



Keeping steadily in view the high purpose of the glorious 
stru^le, no adverse consequences could shake the "firm re- 
solve." Their march was onward, onward! — And then, like 
the quick succession of the vivid lightning, victory followed 
victory, until the impulse given at Bunker Hill, finally con- 
summated the glorious achievement on the plains of Torktown. 
WASHINGTON returned his sword to its scabbard, saturated 
with the blood of his country's enemies. And he, and his com- 
patriots in arms, returned to the peaceful shades of private life, 
amid the acclamations of the people, and the loud reverbera- 
tions of triumph. 

Our constitution adopted, with the hero of a hundred bat- 
tles at its head ; what a spectacle did we present to the admira- 
tion of the civilized world 1 Inexperienced in the science of 
government, we were a problem for the solution of mankind. 
Our system bore but a slight resemblance to the republics of an- 
tiquity — the sphere of its operation was more extensive, the 
revolution of its parts more complicated. Numerous lesser 
wheels within the rim and protection of a greater, required the 
utmost vigilance, to guard and mark their regular rotation. 
The foundation of the Engine, was the unhewn block of a new 
hemisphere, on which the science of political mechanics, was 
heretofore unknown. Cunning artificers and skilful workmen 
were necessary to build it up, and bold and resolute engineers 
to set it in motion. From the first opening of the valve, the 
machine started off gracefully, and with wonderful harmony, 
and has continued its revolutions unimpaired by internal acci 
dent, until the present day. Forty-four years have now elaps- 
ed, and no doubt exists of its perpetuity and stability. That 
its happy operation may continue, whilst the sea girds it, and 
the heavens canopy it, is the fervent aspiration of the patriot! 

But what has been the effect of the adoption of this political 
system upon our own country, and "the great glolje itself?" 

Improvements, prodigious and vast, have characterised our 

progress. Mountains have been emboweled, and their hidden 

B 



10 

treasures brought forth, and appropriated to the uses of life. 
Rivers have been travelled with the rapidity of the thunderbolt, 
and time and space annihilated by the locomotive and the steam 
engine. The dogma of the ancient philosophers that a democ- 
racy could not exist in a great extent of territory, is here obvia- 
ted by theTimely application of steam. The air has been tra- 
versed by the balloon, and the beauties of the upper sky ex- 
plored by the intrepidity of the jeronaut. Rail roads and ca- 
nals intersect the whole country, as the veins and arteries, thro' 
which run and circulate the vital blood of the body politic. 
From continent to continent our sails whiten the ocean, and 
our flag wafts in the breeze of every sea "under the whole 
heaven." The ground tilled and cultivated under peaceful 
and benignant skies, brings forth fruitful and abundant harvests. 
By the aid of the pulley & the lever, lofty temples have been erect- 
ed to the service of the Almighty, and magnificent mausoleums 
and monuments to the memory of the illustrious dead. Knowl- 
edge beams forth from the walls of a thousand seminaries of 
learning, and her benign rays have expanded the views, and 
ameliorated the condition of the people. 

Here let us pause, and take a rapid sketch of our own noble 
city. 

When the Declaration just read was adopted amid the plau- 
dits of the American multitude, the place on which you now 
stand, was a barren and vinproductive forest. The influence 
of our free institutions has shorn the stately oak of his leafy 
honors, and prostrated his lofty trunk beneath the axe of the 
improver. On his ruins a great metropolis, the queen of man- 
ufacturing cities, has risen as by the force of magic. 
"As the swoln columns of ascending smoke," 
so swells her grandeur. From a thousand chimnies are emitted 
the living evidences of her prosperity. The busy hammer, the 
flaming fire, the revolving roller, all give daily, hourly proof of 
her rapid advancement. Here the rough, mis-shapen elements of 
nature are formed and moulded to suit the purposes of man. 



. 11 

Here machines, to mitigate the toil of the laborer, and facilitate 
the intercourse between the states, are made with a skill Unsur- 
passed even by the old world . Here the naked are clothed 
and the poor fed by the revolution of machiney, and "the po- 
tent agency of steam." From hence the anchor is heaved, to 
give security to the weather beaten mariner, and from hence the 
shovel and the mattock, the plough and the harrow, go forth to 
ease the labors of the husbandman. 

What a contrast would have been presented, had not the act 
of the British Parliament, passed in 1750, with a special refer- 
ence to Pennsylvania, been abrogated by our separation from the 
mother country ? By that act, Pig iron was admitted into Eng- 
land, duty free; but the erection of any rolling or slitting mill, 
ov any tiU hammer, furnace or forge, for the manufacture of 
iron or steel, was prohibited under the penalty of two hundred 
pounds. "They were declared common nuisances, and the 
Governors of the several colonies were directed to have the 
same abated within thirty days, under the penalty of five hun- 
dred pounds." 

Such, my fellow citizens, would have been the damper pla- 
ced upon the ardor of your mechanical zeal. — Such would have 
been the block and the executioner of your inventive faculties. 
Under a foreign dominion, where would now be your spindles, 
and looms, your forges and furnaces? Where would now be 
your mighty steam engines, possessing more power than the 
hundred hands of the fabled Brearius? And where yonder 
stacks, and stately piles, erected to perpetuate the fame of the 
mechanic? In the grave, dug by British oppression, in the 
charnal house built by British tyranny ! 

In contemplating the beauty and prosperity of our own 
country, let us not forget that the "electric spark" of liberty 
has been communicated by us to other nations of the earth. 

Ten years ago, a "lowering cloud" hung over South Ameri- 
ca. Ten years ago Amazon, king of rivers, rolled through a 
land, filled with (lie sons of bondage. ;'iid Chinibcrazo. fron^ 



12 

ills iotty topsj surveyed millions of slaves writhing beneath the 
oppressor's rod. Providence raised up champions to lead on 
the brave to battle. Glowing with indignation, and ani- 
mated by our glorious example, Mexicans, Peruvians, and Co- 
lumbians, burst the manacles that bound them, and resolved to 
be free. The yoke of Spain was broken. Her long cherished 
hope that the mines of the new world should be gathered into 
her store-house, on that day died ; and as the golden vision pass- 
ed from her eyes, she uttered a groan of agony. 

That was another great day for America — a new birth in the 
republican family — a general rejoicing among all her sons. 

Greece, too, "the native clime of song," the country of Le- 
onidas, the place from whence emanated the first democracy; 
she received back from us a portion of her ancient fire. Al- 
though she does not enjoy that system of government congenial 
lo our feelings — although the holy Alliance still wield their 
sceptre over her, yet she has made a rapid stride towards the 
glorious consummation. We cannot reconcile it with the ex- 
alted admiration entertained for that sacred land, the school of 
the philosopher and the architect, the ancient theatre of heroic 
valor, "the lofty seat of canonized bands," that she should be 
degraded and subjugated by the ignorant and haughty Otto- 
man. Let us hope that the day is not far distant, when classic 
Morea will assume her wonted greatness, and her people meet 
us in the Congress of Republics.- 

Pass on to France, and see the effects of our example there: 

"As Samuel's shade to Saul's monarchic eyes," 

30 has been risen Freedom to the house of Bourbon. The 
spectre of their misdeeds and usurpations, has caused their 
throne to tremble, and Europe to feel the vibration. Urged on 
by the same causes that led us to independence, fluctuating 
from principle to principle, receding and advancing, her luxuri- 
ous vineyards have been deluged with blood, and a carnation 
hue infused into the bosom of all her rivers. Unfortunately 
compelled <o pass through the ordeal of human ambition, revo- 



13 

lution has succeeded revolution, until Fiance has obtained the 
blessings of a representative government, fonned in some de- 
gree after the American model. 

Cast your eye further north ; look upon Ireland, "that green 
and choicest spot of earth," that Oasis in the ocean's desert. 
The eye delights to dwell and linger there. Her hills and 
streams, her bogs and fens, and herbs and flowers, have a charm 
and an enchantment that is irresistible. Isolated and alone, 
girt about by rolling seas, she appears to have been intended by 
Heaven for the residence of a peculiar people. Beneath lier 
fogs is a land where might be gatliered golden harvests to crown 
the labors of the husbandman ; but the ox and the ass stand 
still, the spade and the plough are inactive, and a deep moral 
gloom pervades the whole country. Oppression breathes there 
his pestilential breath, and scatters misery and death around. 
Where once the poor ate the bread of contentment, starvation 
now stares them in the face. Where once rambled the young 
with spirits high and buoyant, want now chills with her haggard 
visage, and disease prostrates with his potent arm. Those so- 
cial meetings, where the Irishman pours out the overflowings 
ofhis benevolent nature, are construed into acts of hostility to 
the government, and the fond aspiration of his heart for liber- 
ty, into overt acts of conspiracy and rebellion. 

His private sanctuary invaded, and himself dragged before 
judges adverse to his cause, he exerts in vain the power of re- 
sistance. Denied the right of trial by jury, that sacred immuni- 
ty of the free, he is condemned by a military court, hideous in 
its aspect and fatal in its consequences. Tliose peaceable as- 
semblages of the people, met together to consult for the com- 
mon benefit, and petition for a redress of grievances, are dis- 
persed and put down by the force of arms. The voice of their 
sufferings, crying aloud from the ground, are stifled and sup- 
pressed by the power of government. The great Agitator him- 
self is a victim prepared for the slaughter, and who knows, but 
(hat before another revolution of the sun, he may be numbered 



14 

with the martyrs of his native land, and his spirit waft its flihgt 
to join those of Emmet and Fitzgerald in the skies. 

God grant that this calamity may be averted, that this great 
man maybe preserved to restore freedom to his country, and 
that the thunder of his eloquence may yet shake "the Philip of 
the sea-s !" 

Those who are sanguine in the cause of Ireland, see bright- 
ening prospects before them. They believe that the spirit of 
reform in England will have a salutary influence on the sister 
kingdom — that the people, emulating the magnanimity that 
brought forth the Jew Bill, will insist upon the resignation of 
the whig ministry — that the odious union act of 1801 will be 
repealed, and Ireland resume her independent station among 
the nations of the earth. 

Why should it not be so? "She has fought the battles of 
liberty in other climes"-— She has gone forth at the first blastof 
the trumpet. Her warriors have conquered, side by side, with 
our godlike heroes. She is of kindred spirit with ourselves, 
alike us in heart and sentiment, in courage and bravery. In 

the language of an eloquent statesman "she seems as 

though she once formed part of us, but by some mighty con- 
vulsion of nature, she has been dismembered from our conti- 
nent, and drifted across the Atlantic." 

Go on Irishmen, continue to agitate — Obtain equality of 
rights peaceably if you can — forcibly if you must. Public 
opinion and immutable justice are with you, and will nerve 
your arm for the battle. "Birnam wood will come to Dunsi- 
nane," the tyrant will be overthrown, and liberty's proud en- 
sign yet wave triumphantly over the green hills of Erin. 

And now, my fellow citizens, having taken a rapid survey ot 
our country's prosperity, and of those nations tliat, prompted by 
our success, are rapidly progressing to the elevated acme which 
we have attained, let me call to your reccjlcction the fact, that 
an important trust is confided to your care. 



16 

Since the last anniversary of the Declaration of Independ- 
ence, the immortal Carroll has descended to the tomh, and as the 
last of the signers of that deathless instrument, has bequeathed 
to you a rich and enduring inheritance — Extending from ocean 
to ocean, it is a patrimony of which you cannot be too proud. 
Nature has exhausted her abundance to adorn it with every 
physical beauty — Art and science have combined to improve it; 
and Religion, unrestrained by human enactments, has shed 
upon it in broad effulgence her holy and radiant light. 

Yours is the only pure democracy on earth, and your politi- 
cal faith its essence. By your coadjutors has it been preserv- 
ed, and by the instrumentality of your rulers, have its functions 
been administered. The constitution was their guide, they 
imbibed its wisdom, and when the pillars of the capitol were 
threatened with destruction, by nullification and civil discord, 
this was the oracle that expounded the principles of the govern- 
ment, and restored peace and tranquility to the Union. 

Protect and defend the sacred legacy — keep it as the Tro- 
jans did the Palladium, permit no southern Diomed to take it 
from the citadel, and our country is safe from internal com- 
motion and foreign aggression. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




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